Blazer tennis hopes to wash away the Tigers

After the rain cancelled the April 15 matches against the Georgia Southwestern Hurricanes, Blazer men’s tennis look to repeat the last match up against Gulf South Conference rivals University of West Alabama Tigers.

The Blazers and the Tigers match up today at the Ralph “Skeeter” Carson Tennis Complex at noon to finish up the regular season. This game will take the teams into the 2015 GSC tournaments which start on April 17 at Lagoon Park and O’Connor Tennis Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

If VSU wins today’s games, the Blazers wrap up the No. 2 seed, while UWA settles for the No. 4 spot, but if the Tigers prevail, they enter at No. 2 and VSU goes to No. 3.

VSU heads into the match up with a 7-1 conference record just ahead of UWA which stands at 6-2 in conference play.

The Blazers were the comeback kids in the 2014 season against UWA.

The team was knocked out of the bid for the 2014 Gulf South Conference Title after losing to the Tigers 5-2, but the Blazers entered the GSC Tournament ranked at No. 5 in the NCAA South Regional rankings, and were given a chance for another go with UWA.

At the next meeting, the Blazers burned their way back into Tiger territory as they took the W with 5-2 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

West Alabama, which ended its season with a 23-3 record, jumped out to an early lead as it won two of the three doubles points.

The teams continued to battle back and forth until Niklas Hebring put VSU on the verge of victory with a 6-3, 6-3 win over the Tigers’ Kike Ruiz at No. 5, while Gereon Heitmann closed out the victory with a 7-5, 7-5 victory over Adam Drysdale at No. 3.

This win advanced VSU into the second round of the tournament to face the University of West Florid and benched UWA for the 2014 season.

The contest will serve off at noon at VSU tennis courts with a battle by VSU to keep the leading conference record against UWA.